Today is a sad day for Canada. The Conservative government has tabled a bill that will make Canada far worse than the USA when it comes to your digital rights. What this could mean is that you will no longer be able to take a DVD you purchased and copy the movie to your iPod without being fined. You will no longer be able to take a CD you purchased and copy that music to iTunes for your own personal use. Canada will become a land of lawsuits and a place where ordinary consumers will be faced with criminal prosecution for simply doing what they would normally do with with their digital content.
The minister who has tabled this bill, Jim Prentice (Minsiter of Industry), has been very cagey about the whole deal. This bill was meant to be introduced last December before the holiday break. It was held back due to public outcry. Mr. Prentice was taken by surprise by how many people actually cared about this. He naturally assumed that you and I, the lowly proletariat, were too uneducated to bother with something as complicated as copyright law. How wrong he was.
Michael Geist has lead the campaign in this country to fight Mr. Prentice and his efforts to turn Canada into America's little clone. I urge each and every one of you to visit his blog to find out the details.
I received an email today form the Industry Minister trying to persuade me to believe that this bill is somehow different than what has been put into law down south. This pandering message was sent out to everyone who has voiced there complaint to Prentice in the past. I was not terribly amused by this attempt to avert my attention from the real facts of the bill. After you read Mr. Geist's blog please do what I have done and email Mr. Prentice and express your displeasure. Also I suggest that you contact your local MP to urge them to vote against this bill.
I will attach my email to the bottom of this post. The time is now Canada. Take a stand and make a difference. I really don't usually like to blog about something so political but I really feel that enough is enough. Here are the email addresses you will require:
Minister.Industry@ic.gc.ca
prentice.j@parl.gc.ca
The one thing that frightens me the most about the bill you introduced is that it is not a mirror of the American version, but in many ways worse. Not only will I never vote for a Conservative party member ever again, I will make sure that I will discourage my friends and relatives to do the same. While you lie to us in this email, I will spread the truth by forwarding Michael Geist's analysis of the bill to every single member of my contact list.
Shame on you Mr. Prentice. Shame on you for lying to the Canadian people. Shame on you for turning Canada into a far worse place than it was before. You defaced this great nation with your US pandering and we will all suffer because of it. Electing a Conservative government, even in its minority form, was the biggest mistake this country has made. You and your leader Mr. Harper clearly have your priorities set and will do anything, including misleading, obscuring and plain out lying to cover it up. If you think passing this bill will help you achieve a majority in the next election think again. You have failed this country and your name shall go down in history as destroying the freedom that Canadians so deeply cherish. And no, editing your wikipedia entry will do nothing to fix your tarnished reputation.
I can not even begin to express how disappointed I am right now. Not only am I disappointed in you and the rest of your ministry, but I am disappointed with the state of democracy in this country. You clearly took the concerns of myself and many other Canadians and simply brushed them off with lies. The branding "made in Canada" does not change the fact that you largely went ahead and passed the bill as it was going to be from day one. Do you really believe that Canadians are so idiotic? Do you really believe that you can walk all over us? You are treating us like we are brainless sheep ready to eat any garbage you throw at us.
Mark my words Jim Prentice. You will not get away with this. Canadians from across this country will stand up and fight your attempts to walk all over us and make us look like fools. You will not get away with this.
Thank you for your time, but no thanks for tabling this bill.
Sincerely,
Paul Di Meglio
